Education Business | Volume 14.6
www.educationbusinessuk.com
ICT
From every point of view, the implementation of our Resource system has significantly improved the efficiency of our financial management – Dinesh Upadhyaya, director of finance and resources at the West London Academy schools in managing their budgets and accounts. They have recently launched ‘EZPay’, a simple solution providing a fully hosted electronic purchasing system using @UK PLC’s software to all their local schools. It provides an end to end online process for ordering from a selection of goods and services sold by the school and enables online payments. Russell Darling from Bristol City Council adds: “Not only will the system remove the need for pupils to carry cash in school, it will make it easier for parents to pay directly online for school items such as books, trips and uniforms.” MAIN DRIVERS FOR INVESTMENT PS Financials supplies accounting and purchasing software to the education sector supplying the core financial, purchasing and budgetary control systems to all of the academy federations, currently 10; to over 70 individual academies and some 40 independent schools throughout the UK. Their recent experience indicates that the main drivers for the schools sector for investing in new Financial Management Software are: improving reporting capabilities, budgetary control, analysis by teaching department, increase efficiency of the finance staff, easier processing of different income stream’s e.g. school trips, hire of facilities etc. and automation of regular routine tasks such as automatic bank reconciliation and automating input. In addition, schools are also looking to evaluate their ‘carbon emissions’ by recording and monitoring information in order to provide a control for carbon emission reduction. COA Solutions provides extended financial
management solutions to the education sector incorporating integrated budgeting and forecasting and document management. Mark Thompson, managing director at COA Solutions, comments: “Achieving cost and efficiency savings whilst ensuring greater financial control have always been driving factors behind a school’s decision to invest in financial management software. However, as a result of the government-led drive to reduce organisations’ carbon emissions, the green credentials of financial software systems is another key consideration which is currently driving investment into the more environmentally-friendly solutions. Finance systems with integrated electronic document management, for example, are proving especially appealing to the schools sector as these systems cut paper consumption as well as carbon emissions generated during the printing, photocopying and postage of paper documents.” As an example, COA Solutions supplies the Version One document imaging system, which supports Lincoln College’s green agenda in line with government targets. Paul Allison, finance manager at the college, says: “Colleges are under increasing pressure from the government to cut carbon emissions and make significant efficiency savings and so this was an important consideration when choosing Version One. Since implementing DbArchive, staff no longer have to print out and photocopy invoices several times over, which has dramatically reduced our environmental impact.”
STREAMLINING PROCESSES Dataflow (UK) Limited supplies financial solutions for the bursar’s office where the greatest demand has been for the ability to access data anywhere, anytime through streamlining all management processes and system data. Martin Axon, head of accounts at Wellington School, comments on the Dataflow system for schools: “The main benefit of the system is practical in terms of the huge reduction in the amount of paperwork generated”. Unit 4 Agresso is a major supplier of Finance and Accountancy systems to the education sector, through its Agresso and CODA product lines. Their IntegrisG2 product helps to maximise efficiency for schools, is easy to use, requires little IT administration time and is cost effective as it can be hosted by the local education authority or as a hosted service to groups of schools, who can access the system via the internet. David Turner, group marketing director for Unit 4 Agresso: “In our experience the key drivers in deploying education systems are low cost of ownership, ease of use, self-service (for budget holders, staff and students) and ease of deployment across the organisaton (including outside the finance department) and across multiple locations. “In practice this requires finance systems that are web based, can be incorporated into existing campus or authority portals, with customisable screens and fieldnames, and with online help to assist non-finance or infrequent users.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: 01494 868 030 Web: www.basda.org
The virtualisation and shared storage specialist DA TECHNOLOGY Services specialises in deploying virtualisation, ‘Green IT’ and shared storage solutions within the education sector. From web based secure desktop technologies to multimedia optimised virtual environments, ADA fully understands the demands of today’s media rich curricula. A vendor independent systems integrator, ADA’s consultative approach ensures learning institutions receive advice they can trust. By remaining impartial, ADA ensures its clients within the education sector invest in reliable, readily expandable infrastructure with a guaranteed service life. ADA provides onsite demonstrations or longer
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term ‘proof of concept’ programmes to assist schools, colleges and universities in choosing the right technology prior to contracted investment. Furthermore, ADA’s solutions are built around an innovative zero per cent finance payment model which allows institutions to reduce initial
capital expenditure by paying over time. To find out how ADA’s strategic methodology can help accelerate learning in your environment, call one of our specialists today. Alternatively, why not attend one of ADA’s education focused events. These sessions provide an ideal opportunity for schools, colleges and universities to share ideas and learn from deployed solutions within the education sector.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: +44 (0)1444 232 000 E-mail: enquiries@ada.co.uk Web: www.ada.co.uk
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR EDUCATION
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